Prosthetic Conscience

Ratatouille

Ratatouille is the best thing about summer. Everything in it is from either our garden, a friend’s garden, or Round River Farms. A bowl of this basil-y vegetable stew and a glass of red table wine is enough to make you even be thankful for the 95° heat.

This is my version of the recipe, slightly modified from Anna Thomas’ in The New Vegetarian Epicure. It makes a lot; I made about half this much tonight and we had leftovers.

2 lbs. young, firm eggplants	2 Tbs olive oil
salt to taste	handful of chopped flat leaf parsley
2 lbs zucchini or yellow crookneck squash, or a mixture of the two.	2 handfuls of chopped fresh basil
6 cloves garlic, chopped	1 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
3 large onions, chopped	fresh ground black pepper to taste; I prefer rather a lot.
1 lb green bell pepper, seeded and chopped	3 large, red tomatoes, cut in 1 inch pieces
2 cups chopped roma tomatoes (in our garden these are more abundant than the large ones)

Cut the eggplants in ½-inch dice; I prefer them unpeeled. Toss them in a collander with salt (to drain their water). Trim the squash and cut it similarly, and also toss it in the collander with salt.

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan or small dutch oven. Put in the garlic and onion and sauté over medium heat until the onion is translucent. Add the eggplant and squash to the onions and sauté for 7 or 8 minutes. Add the peppers and the chopped roma tomatoes, cover, turn down the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Uncover the pan, and if the ratatouille is too soupy, let it simmer uncovered a bit to thicken. Add the chopped herbs and balsamic vinegar and pepper. Stir in the cut large tomatoe pieces, and simmer just for a few minutes.

Serve hot with some Parmesan cheese and a dry red table wine.

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